Adamski's Mk2 Leon FR CR Lumina Orange

[adamski]

Been on the forum years and I have found it a very useful resource.Figured it's about time I Start a thread for my car

It's a 2009 2.0 TDI FR CR in Lumina Orange with the convienience Pack, 18's and rear parking sensors, bluetooth voice calls but no media streaming.

I've owned my FR for 3 years and decided this year I am going to play with it a bit and do all the bits too it I was going to do when I first bought it. It's Standard at the moment and the plan is to modernise it a bit and freshen up its 5 year old bodywork. My girlfriend has just got a Mk3 FR 184 and its a very nice car (the armrest is my favourite feature!) and it's inspired me to bring mine up to a similar spec!






Plans are:

- Halogen headlights replaced for brighter Xenons and LED Sidelights
- LED Rear number plate lights
- RNS315 Headunit
- Shortshift
- Remap
- Alloy wheel refurb and plastidip darker, maybe anthracite or gunmetal, not gloss black.
- Plastidip all the chrome such as the badges and grill and wing mirror covers
- Eibach Sportline lowering Kit
- General bodywork detailing to get rid of the swirl marks
- Headlights polished to remove the pitting
- Install Armrest

Thanks for looking

 

[Riley TDi]

Nice car, love the colour. Sounds like you have given yourself a bit of work to do lol.

 

[Daniel M]

Nice mate, don't see many orange ones about.

I'd also get rid of the chrome on the front grille and have the mirrors sprayed to match.

 

[adamski]

Cheers guys, yeah the plan is to plasti dip the front grill,front and rear 'S' chrome badges, front and rear FR badges mirror caps then eventually the wheels gunmetal grey. I decided on plastidip as read a lot of good reviews about it, I don't want the hassle of buying new badges if i want to go back to standard or change my mind about the gunmetal colour, just peel it off!

Done a little bit today, nothing major as lacking funds. Gave the car a quick wash today and deided to give the engine bay a bit of a wipe down. I bought some Car Plan Black trim wax as it was cheap and I think it did a pretty good job of the plastic in the engine bay.


Before:

After:



I also used it on some on my black exterior trim and window rubbers, it worked ok and has improved them slightly but I think I will eventually spray the bonnet scuttle and door pillars bloss black.

Before:



After:




I actually used it on my interior trim and that gave the best results for the scuffs from getting in and out of the car.

I also fitted my LED sidelights and LED numberplate bulbs which I'll get some pictures of when its dark. The number plate lights make a big difference I think.

I initially used non error free LED sidelight bulbs and had constant error lights, now I've switched to canbus bulbs I have no more warning lights but everytime I start up it tells me to check my sidelights, do i need VAGCOM to clear this message?

Next job will be phillips X-treme vision bulbs, I will be ordering these instead of going down the HIDs route.

Cheers.

Thanks

 

[1Toomanycars]

Liking the orange, but then, you can't beat a pastel coloured Leon!

 

[jonnyhugill]

love the colour!

 

[adamski]

Just a quick (and poor) photoshop of what I'd like my car to end up looking like. I'm a bit rusty on photoshop haven't used it in years, wheel sizes are a bit wrong and obviously its too low at the back but you get the idea. I stole the wheels of Scott.T's car, really like the rs4 reps in that colour, and they seem reasonably priced so may have to add that to my list of mods. I've tried to match the mirror covers and front grill to the colour of the wheels.

 

[Riley TDi]

That does look good, I definitely agree with you on the wheels. They look real good in that colour, especially against the orange.

 

[MATTCR]

Orange! I love orange

Lovely

 

[Rob66]

Lovely looking car but think I would stick to the standard alloys, look better in my opinion.

 

[adamski]

Lovely looking car but think I would stick to the standard alloys, look better in my opinion.

Do you think? I've never really been a fan of the FL 18's, and they are a pain to clean! Maybe i'll do another photoshop with the standard wheels in gunmetal see how that looks

 

[adamski]

Orange! I love orange

Lovely

Love the wheels on your car, what colour are they?

 

[1Toomanycars]

Do you think? I've never really been a fan of the FL 18's, and they are a pain to clean! Maybe i'll do another photoshop with the standard wheels in gunmetal see how that looks

That style of RS4 wheel does seem a bit old fashioned now, especially on a FL Leon in bright orange, but if you like them, that's all that matters mate, it's your car!

Have you seen the newer style RS4 reps?

 

[adamski]

Quick update, changed my discs and pads all round, nowhere near as bad a job as i was expecting, pretty straight forward when you know what you're doing! Also couple of new tyres up front.

Also ordered a set of eibach sportlines, £115 delivered from Germany sat in my boot awaiting fitting hopefully this weekend!

Had a mate play around with vcds and now my dials do this!
via Imgflip GIF Maker


However still got a warning message about my sidelights he couldn't clear so need to look into that!

Also got myself a can of Matt black plastidip to try out (discovered its impossible to get anthracite plastidip outside the U.S!) Sprayed my rear badges and very impressed with the stuff, and even like the badges in black as opposed to gunmetal, well get a picture soon.

 

[MATTCR]

I did the same to my badges last weekend too.

What brakes did you go for? Looking into drilled/grooved myself, can be had for around 200 for the set.

 

[adamski]

It's good stuff isn't it! Even though i knew what to expect i was still amazed how it peels off and leaves the badges painted haha. I'll be ordering some more cans and doing my wheels in the future.

I went for pagid discs and pads, i looked at a drilled set on ebay but decided against it as they where unbranded and also alot of the companies quote a different size for the rear when it should be 255mm. So i ordered the bits on halfords website so i knew i was getting the right bits, came to about £150 but for some reason i didn't save any money using my trade card which the halfords bloke didn't understand either.

 

[adamski]

So I attempted to fit my sportlines this weekend but was a massive failure! Could'nt remove the axle bolts, had a 4ft bar on my breaker bar and it just bent! Going to have another go next weekend without removing the axle bolts.

So instead this weekend I did some plasti dipping, I've done my boot badges, mirror caps and front grill and badge. I didn't want black so I purchased some Silver metalizer which you spray on after the initial coat and its supposed to give it a metallic look but it just looks glittery now which I dont like. So I've left it on for now but i will be removing it and probably giving in and settling for matt black! I will be doing the wheels the same colour after I've refurbished them.

Overall I think plastidip is pretty good, easy to apply, dont need much prep work but you do have to be really carefull peeling it off the bits you don't want it on, as I found it will start peeling off the bits you do want! And I think adding the metallizer made this worse as well. Even though the attraction of plastidip is you dont have to mask bits of, its definatley worth taking the time to remove bits off the car first before you spray, saves alot of annoyance when you start peeling off the bits you want it to stay on!

 

[adamski]

Finally got my sportlines fitted! Just had the wheel alignment done today along with two new tyres at the rear. What a pain in the arse the fronts are! The first side took me the best part of three hours, the second side took me 30 minutes I couldn't believe how easy the rears were.

Standard before and after pictures:





This is after less than 24 hours, i expect them to settle a bit more but I'm happy with it already. Never noticed how far the wheels are in the wheel arches until it was lowered, may get some wheels spacers to bring them out a bit...

Going to be refurbing my wheels at the weekend, bought myself some anthracite paint ready, will probably spray the mirror caps too. Not sure how it will adhere to the 'chrome' grill and badges? So may just stick with matt black plastidip for those, what do people think?

 

[Daniel M]

Looks great with the sportlines and plasti-dip bits.

Normal paint will stick to the chrome fine as long as you sand them first so the paint has something to stick to.

 

[josh-leonfr]

What drop did you go for with the sport lines? Car is looking good aswell love the colour!